DIGITAL skills are “not prioritised enough” in the Island, Digital Jersey’s chief executive has told a panel of politicians – warning that AI is “the area where the rest of the world is just going to accelerate off without us”.
Tony Moretta made the comments yesterday during a hearing with the Public Accounts Committee, which is conducting a review of arm’s-length bodies.
Last month, Mr Moretta revealed that Digital Jersey would have to “cut back” on its AI and digital skills courses for the public after government officials rejected a funding bid.
Towards the end of yesterday’s hearing, Committee member Deputy David Warr also noted the “tightening” of the organisation’s budget over the years and asked whether it was “being taken seriously as a sector of the economy”.
Mr Moretta told the Committee that: “I think we are taken seriously. I think the problem is prioritisation.”
He contended that “there isn’t enough understanding that digital is the future of the economy, no matter which sector”.
“One of the reasons we’re focusing on AI is that we think most organisations, with the odd exception, have got more digital over the years – not as much as we should,” he continued.
“Particularly the public sector has a long way to go. But AI is the area where the rest of the world is just going to accelerate off without us.
“There is a massive threat to the Jersey economic model, because AI, if left to the market, well, the risk is it will automate the well-paid jobs in the finance industry, which are administration, things like that.
“It won’t automate the jobs in hospitality, care, other areas like that.”
Mr Moretta described the rejected funding bid to support the AI and digital courses as “a clear example” of where “the importance of digital as an economic sector, but also as a horizontal across the economy, is not prioritised enough in Jersey”.
